Have been pondering on rechambering one of these already bastardised .45 acp M1873's to .45 schofield.
Looking for maximum safe power from my bush gun.
Not intending to go hot rodding at the loading bench, but 250 grains at 800+fps sure would be welcome in the wild country that I frequent.
Any merit to this endeavour?. I cant afford a SAA.
Sorry for the thread drift OP.
I already have done that ( chambered one to 45 schofield ) .
the cylinder is only 1.35 inches , oal for 45 sch is around 1.45 ( roughly ) so you have to run them 100 thou short .
what I ended up doing that works really well for me .
I used a 45acp reamer and cut into the cylinder until it measured 1.12 " . then I used a 45 colt reamer to finish cutting the chamber and throat ( I used a 45 colt round and kept cutting the throat until the end of the round was a few thou short of the cylinder ) . then it was a matter of making all the cylinders identical .
the throats are really tight on these guns , I opened mine up to around .453ish - .454
I cut a step into the cylinder for the 45 sch rim . it wasn't a lot just a few thou ( I used a 44 mag reamer ) . I set my headspace between just a hair over 2 thou and a hair under 2.5 thou .
I left the outside edge of the rim cut out untouched so I could also use 455 webley rounds . I don't have any to measure the headspace , but I expect them to run between 13 -18 though of clearance .
just for sh*ts and giggles , a 303 british case head and rim fits perfectly in a uncut chamber . but the rim is way too thick .
bullet barn has 45 sch brass , jethunter has some wonderfull 216 grain , soft lead hollow points .
5 grains of trailboss seem to work really well . oal is around 1.345 "
I was using cci large mag pistol primers and was having some issue until I modded the firing pin . normal large pistol primers will also fix the problem I had .
I have some pics of these in the thread I created with primer issues .....